Mayor Hodges: Officer Noor Has 'A Story To Tell No One Else Can Tell'
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Monday night, Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges and the assistant Minneapolis police chief reacted to the new developments in the fatal shooting of an Australian woman by a Minneapolis police officer.
The overwhelming feeling from the press conference was: they understand the frustration of the community to not have answers.
Hodges said it's hard to have some of the picture but not all of it. She said she is dismayed there is not body cam video of what happened. Officer Mohamed Noor has not given an interview to the BCA to relay his account of what happened. She wishes he would.
"I wish that he would because he has a story to tell that no one else can tell," Hodges said, "but I share the frustration of the community at not knowing things we desperately wish that we knew. The flip side is we want to make sure that the investigation is thorough, we want to make sure that the investigation is independent and we want to make sure that the investigation has integrity."
Assistant Chief Mederia Arradondo said there is an internal affairs investigation open into the use of force. That is standard. The body cameras will be part of that investigation. Already in motion is a full review of the department policy including how often officers activate the body worn cameras.
While he wouldn't talk about Noor's training specifically, he did talk about changes made to that policy after the police shooting death of Jamar Clark.
"One of the things we recently have done in terms of a change of our policy, our use of force policy is we've embedded the sanctity of life, and that's not only for our officers but that's for our community members because we believe at the end of the day everyone should go home," he said.
"Before anything else, if you look up our policy, our use of force policy, sanctity of life should be the guiding force in terms of how our officers are out there interacting with the community that we're serving every day."